I'd give up hearing. I already know sign language and am familiar with Deaf culture. I would miss music but I want to be able to read, "smell the roses", "taste life" and feel the touch of a friend or family member.

no question i would give up smell. the most important to me is sight. i use my eyes for everything that is meaningful in my life. my dear families faces, my books, my sewing and crafts. cooking requires reading. need to hear and wouldn't want to give up the touch of my kitties and all my children babies.

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"life isn't about how to survive the storm but how to dance in the rain"

I have to agree with you on giving up smell, although I could go on after losing any of them with love in my heart. I have known someone who was blind but saw many things much clearer than I. I have known several deaf people who "listen" better than most people, and when my uncle was paralyzed and unable to feel much sensation at all, he found comfort in the memories of how it felt to be held and touched. I would dearly miss any of them, but would be ok. Even smell would be truly missed when bread was baking, or the neighbor was smoking his pipe, or even when spring's lilacs were in full bloom. I am so thankful for what I have, and I am blessed. If I lost one of my senses, I would still be blessed.

__________________No matter where I serve my guests, it seems they like my kitchen best!

My sense of smell went haywire a few years ago, which took my sense of taste with it. Some of my favorite things started tasting and smelling like a gas station bathroom; a bad one. Once menopause ended, some of it came back. I lost something like 40 lbs (which I needed to lose). People kept telling me I must be happy to have lost the weight. The simple answer is no, losing the weight wasn't worth the loss of my joy in cooking and eating. The senses came back, and I'm back to being overweight. I'd rather be fat than not enjoy good food (you have to understand I'm not a junk food junkie; I cook and eat good healthy food most of the time, just too much of it!).

This is a discussion I have with a couple of friends, one who is blind. I was blind for a few months (an eye disease that, thank heaven, was cured). I think I'd go with the sense of taste and smell, even though I hated it when it happened to me. I'd have a hard row to hoe if I could not read. Hearing? well, sometimes I think that most people my age cannot hear anyway. Too much loud rock in their 20s, or the other half, too much artillery fire and flight line engines in their 20s.